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Say No To Bone Char! A List of Bone Char Free Vegan Sugar Companies

A List of Bone Char Free Vegan Sugar Companies

Sugar comes from two sources – sugar cane and sugar beets.

Bone char is widely used by the sugar industry as a decolorizing filter, which allows sugar to achieve its white color. The bone char is made from the bones of cattle from countries like Afghanistan, Argentina, India and Pakistan. The bones are sold to traders who then sell them to the U.S. sugar industry.

Bone char is used in many types of sugar including brown sugar and confectioner's sugar.

The supermarket brands of sugar obtain their sugar from several different refineries, making it next to impossible to know whether it has been filtered with bone char. Beet sugar is considered vegan because it’s never processed with bone char.

This bone char filter process is unacceptable to many vegans.

Even if you’re not vegan, you have reason to be concerned about refined sugars and bone char.

Due to health concerns, the FDA prohibits the use of bones from the United States’ meat industry which is why the bones are imported. Also, the bones are required to come from animals that die of natural causes, but no one is monitoring that.

Fortunately there are vegan sugars on the market, but it takes a little effort to purchase. If you can't find vegan sugar at your local market, I recommend going online. Here is a list of vegan sugars available on Amazon. If you know of any others, please share.

** It has been brought to my attention that Florida Crystals Organic Cane Sugar may be responsible for pollution problems in Florida. Here are some articles regarding it**
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/angry-about-floridas-ruined-waters-fishermen-unite-against-big-sugar-8475700
https://www.floridacrystals.com/algae-facts-response
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/06/06/florida-sugar-industry-backs-adam-putnam-governor/651146002/

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No, they aren’t diabetic friendly, but I’ve been using Truvia (which is Stevia) and Agave Nectar…they do not cause blood sugar to rise. Available on Amazon.com or local grocery stores. These two products do not cause blood sugar to rise.

Dates. First of all, all foods cause fluctuations in blood sugar levels, the safest bet is to find something naturally sweet that has not been processed and add that to your drink, baking, dressing, etc.

Dates are high in fiber and will cause a slower spike in blood sugar and less of a dramatic crash. Above all, for type 2 diabetes you should be avoiding processed products in general, as to lower your fat intake.

Agave syrup has been marketed as a “healthful” sweetener, but this fact has been the subject of criticism due to its very high fructose content (which is even more than high fructose corn syrup in its fructose content by weight) and its potential to lead to insulin resistance and significantly increased triglyceride levels (a risk factor for heart disease)

If you’re diabetic eat hclf, go on YouTube to the channel ‘high carb diabetic’ people wouldn’t make any money from curing you would they, its better if pharmaceutical companies keep selling you their drugs. Forks over knives and high carb diabetic on YouTube and see what yiu think xD

As a diabetic I’d never eat sweeteners or sugars other than contained in fruits and vegetables. Processed sugars cause cancer and sweeteners are a serious health risk bar a couple, and they are not healthy. A raw food diet is best and can even reverse type 2 diabetes. Research research !

Hi Joanna – my research is telling me that the sugar industry in Australia uses non-animal coal filters to process cane sugar in Australia although I would research the individual brands you are planning on buying. Thanks for being part of our community Joanna.

Would like to ask if anyone knows if white granulated sugar with bone char processing would hurt hummingbirds? I make a 4 to 1 mix of this sugar all summer for them & have already purchased a 25 lb. bag of the stuff. My hummers are piggies.

That is such a good question Lynel. I can’t find anything about it hurting hummingbirds online. The only two harmful ingredients for hummingbirds that I could find are red food coloring and too many preservatives. Thanks for feeding the hummingbirds and being part of our community!

It the sugar WITHOUT bone char processing that can hurt the hummingbirds: “Raw sugar, agave syrup, brown sugar, molasses, artificial sweeteners, or anything other than white sugar; these cause various problems for hummers.”

Hi Nancy, I’ve just discovered your site and really love it! You have so many great, easy recipes.Can’t wait to start trying them all.
I wonder if you have the low down on how vegan wine is produced. I assumed all wine was vegan but apparently most is not. I’m in the dark on this. Any info. would be most appreciated.

If it is unbleached it shouldn’t have bone char because the purpose of the bone char is to whiten the sugar but brown sugars could have been made with bone char so I would buy vegan sugar to be certain. Thanks Tracy for being part of our community.

I was just researching vegan sugar and was trying to chose between Domino agave and Florida Crystals only to find out Domino foods owns C&H sugar, Domino sugar, and Florida crystals. Does anyone know if this leader company makes all it’s sugar vegan? I would like to support a whole company doing the right thing, not just one of their brands.

I know that Rogers sugar in canada is Vegan, however only if produced in the alberta factory, the vancouver factory, however uses the bone-char method… I use their plantation raw in all my baking and stuff, and it is awesome 🙂

Does anybody know of a company that sells GMO beet sugar? I’m seriously looking for a inexpensive, vegan GMO beet sugar but am having a hard time finding a consumer product that meet my guidelines. I figure I need to avoid the cognitive dissonance and my ethical qualms with buying organic products since they actively disparage good science and engage in anti-GMO fear mongering.

I didn’t know this David until you brought it up but it seems The US sugar beet industry coordinated an industry-wide conversion to genetically modified sugar beets, thus eliminating a non-GMO alternative for food manufacturers and consumers. For more information – click here

Do you have a better resource than an anti-GMO website with no references or good scientific resources? Like with any ag product, it is the farmers that decide, not the industry, what they want to grow based upon many factors such as cost, quality of the product, environmental impact, and more. I am actually glad that farmers have moved away from using toxic organic and conventional pesticides and herbicides in favor on GM crops that use products that are less toxic to humans than salt.

Anyways, any idea on where to get non-organic, vegan transgenic sugar beet sugar?

American Crystal in the Midwest is all beet and probably mostly GMO. There has been a lot of pressure for the farmers in this co-op to plant Roundup Ready seed. It’s about the same price as any supermarket sugar. Beet sugar is vegan because it usually bleached through a spray method rather than a filter method.

Bone char is not used at Taber’s sugar beet factory or at Montreal’s cane refinery. Bone char is only used at the Vancouver cane refinery. All products under the Lantic trademark are free of bone char. For the products under the Rogers trademark, all Taber sugar beet products are also free of bone char. In order to differentiate the Rogers Taber beet products from the Vancouver cane products, you can verify the inked-jet code printed on the product. Products with the code starting with the number “22” are from Taber, Alberta, while products with the code starting with the number “10” are from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Heavenly Organics Sugar is Vegan. It’s rare, 100% organic whole cane sugar from the pristine foothills of the Himalayan Mountains produced by a cooperative of small farmers who practice an ancient method of removing impurities from organic cane juice by using wild-crafted herbs and then sun drying. It’s made without the use of commercial dryers thus preserving the natural nutrients and minerals and reducing our carbon footprint.

Is sugar actually vegan? How do you know that animals aren’t dying when they burn the sugar fields? Seem like a lot of mice and frogs would be killed in the process. To me if something dies to make the product it’s not vegan. Are any of these sugars made without burning the cane fields?

Nothing is perfect; unfortunately all crops will have some collateral damage, whether it be an insect stepped on, or a mouse being crushed by equipment. We can only aim for the least damage possible. That being said, beet sugar does not involve burning fields. It does often involve GMOs, however.

Burning a field seems like there would be a lot more collateral damage than a tractor driving through a field, just saying. Not to mention how much of the worlds rain forests that are cut down to grow sugar. Humans don’t need refined sugar to survive.

I have to say I agree, and prefer to buy beet sugar when I can, despite the GMO status. But GMOs have their own environmental effects, and a lot of unknowns, so I can’t say that’s an obvious choice for most people.

Hey, thanks for the information! For those in the UK like me, all of Tate and Lyle’s sugars (white and brown) and syrups are vegan with the exception of their powdered sugar which contains egg white. I was massively relieved to find this out as you can pretty much find their products everywhere!

Thanks for your answers to the sugar problem, I’m glad to hear Tate and Lyle are vegan. I’m vegetarian and just starting out as vegan, labelling is a minefield, still, I like a challenge and it’ll be worth it to safeguard animals.

thank you for that information Darren! I have been using turbinado sugar for 30 years, when my first son was born, trying to avoid the refined sugar intake, but not really knowing what I was doing! (pre-internet!)

I’m lucky to be living in Canada! Red Path sugar is probably the most common and widely used. I’m not a full vegan but am working toward it. I don’t think that I would make a huge deal over sugar especially because I don’t think this is commonly known. Avoiding sugar isn’t a bad thing anyway. :p

I switched to coconut sugar some time ago. Doesn’t absorb into the bloodstream as fast and I can just use a 1/2 a teaspoon in my coffee now versus what I was using. Not fully vegan yet but about 90% so far. I’m loving it too!

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